Former Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer has accused Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta of attempting to “rewrite history” by suggesting state prosecutors went easy on Jeffrey Epstein when he got a cushy plea deal more than a decade ago, the Daily Beast reports.

Krischer said the labor secretary’s “recollection of the matter is completely wrong.” The 53-page indictment against Epstein was abandoned, Krischer said, after “secret negotiations between Mr. Epstein’s lawyers and Mr. Acosta.”

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta “publicly defended his role in overseeing the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein for sex crimes committed in Florida over a decade ago, bucking a growing chorus of Democratic calls for his resignation,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Acosta said he faced a tough choice between accepting a plea deal that was not as tough as he wished it would be and going to trial with witnesses who were scared to testify in what he described as ‘a roll of the dice’ that might not result in a conviction and prison term.”

Aaron Blake: The big question Acosta did not answer.

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta is out of the running to be President Trump’s attorney general following a report that he oversaw a sweetheart deal for a wealthy financier accused of raping teenage girls and running a sex-trafficking ring, McClatchy reports.

The story was “not helpful” to Acosta, two advisers said.

President Trump is set to announce Alexander Acosta as his new pick to head the Department of Labor, NBC News reports.

“Acosta served as assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division under President George W. Bush, selected by the president in August 2003. Acosta was a member of the National Labor Relations Board and also served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division. Most recently, he was the dean of Florida International University College of Law.”

“If confirmed, Acosta would be the first Hispanic in Trump’s cabinet.”